According to Avon, not only is SSS a fine skin conditioner, it will also take tar off your car and repel insects ...
I don't remember all the things that Skin So Soft will do, but it was quite a list (twenty years ago)
And, no, Pepsi is NOT like Coke ... I can tell the difference, and prefer Pepsi, but it doesn't have the "cleaning" qualities.
Regarding VINEGAR for softening denim ...
currently, if I want to make totes or anything else out of my new denim yardage, I have been instructed to wash and dry it THREE times ... if I put a cup of vinegar into the wash on the first wash, will I still have to have a total of three washings and dryings to get it soft? <wave>

They use to use coke to soften denium but now they do what they call "stone washing". Washing the fabric with stones softens it and removes the dark color. You will see in catalogs that stone washed jeans are softer and lighter in color.

The pet mesh can be found at Lowe's.

I never heard about the coke thing but it would be neat to experiment with a small swatch of denim and a coke can. Let us know how that works; could work on other fabrics as well. It would be interesting to see the effect. I used to work for Levi Strauss and they actually used lava stones to wash the jeans and get them all worn looking. The second question I thought referred to where to get the pet screen. I have seen it at hardware stores but it only comes in gray and black there. To get it in colors, you have to get it in a fabric stre, I guess. Good luck.

PS- I've also heard, not tried it, that coke will do a bang up job cleaning the toilet. Now that we know all that, do we still want to keep drinking the stuff?!

I worked at a Levi Strauss factory, also!
The denim we worked with was better than anything I could ever find on the shelves.
We didn't do the stone-washed version. <wave>

I don't know about washing denim....but...my mother's family's plots are in a cemetary with many, many, elderberry bushes along the edges...and the birds love them...and they (the birds) would leave their "purple calling card" on my Dad's headstone...she used to wash with laundry soap and water, and bleach, and Lestoil..to no avail....a sweet, elderly gentlemen, witnessing her tears (at the young age of 44) walked over and said---"Don't cry Miss, just use this"..presenting an open bottle of Coke, "it works every time"...and it did! We had a bottle of Coke with us each Sunday when we went to Daddy's grave (and Gramma and Grampa's and Aunts Mary, Cora, Anna, Bertha, Uncles Fred, Adolf, Ernest, Arthur and on and on and on)

Coke was used by my father to wash the grime from his
car windshield. And sometimes i do it with my little car.

I'm going to try it on a new, darker pair of jeans I just bought and
haven't worn yet. Always wash them first to see if I can soften them a little bit.

We used to wash the new dark jeans a few times to get some of the excess dye out of them, too. Otherwise one had blue skin and blue undies.

greaterexp said:

It's strange that I automatically opened that topic. I guess at 50, I consider myself in that category. When did that happen?


It happened the first time someone called you "ma'am"! It sure threw me!

I have been calling ladies "Ma'am" since I was 26 years old.
A lady called me that in response to a question while we were working on her car - - and, it hit me!
Most of the problems we have in this world is because we have so little regard for anyone else.
I have ladies get really upset because I call them "ma'am" ... and, it is really strange to be teaching old women about how to train children to be polite and how old women ought to expect to be respected.
Sometimes, it seems to me, for all the "civilization" and "education" we supposedly have, we have become a more crude, rude bunch of human beings <wave>

Yes, what happened to courtesy, manners, and most of all respect for others?

That IS a rhetorical question, right???? LOL
I finally figured out that if I didn't start being polite, no one else would ever figure it out ... and, that is when I learned how to defend my right to treat others with respect and EXPECT the same back ... can you imagine???? it is almost surreal!
I can't figure out why people take exception to manners ...
LOL .... I don't handle rhetorical very well, do I? LOL <wave>

ladies, i will be included at the ripe old age of 28 in the older folks category with the answer to the coke question. I have heard of it being used. Had a teacher put a square of fabric (don't remember what kind) in a class of coke on Monday and by friday it was breaking down. he was also the health teacher. (it was a small school)he wanted to show us what soda really did to our insides. and he also told us that almost all sodas are actually radio active green before the food coloring goes in. gross huh?

Yes, it was a rhetorical question, kind of. I, too, try to set the example, and also try not to sink to their level.

Omak, where did you work? and how long were you there? I wonder if there are other ex LS& Co. people here. I worked in El Paso, TX (Jeanswear), San Antonio, TX (womenswear) and then transferred to San Francisco home office. I love meeting other Levi's people!

I worked in the factory for 4.5 years. In Spokane, Washington back in 1990-94. Levis were one run that was pretty consistent through most of that time, but I worked on the other side with Helly Hansen for the most part.
We did contracting, so the boss had to bid different jobs, different clothing lines - - I have sewn zippers into hip pockets without pins (mind you <g>), the trim on bathrobes, insulated shirts for HH, even bathing suits, and some totes ... a variety of lines went through.
It was so amazing! I didn't know how to sew when I started and I don't know where I thought Levis came from, but apparently, I must have thought there was some sort of machine that you put the denim in one end and it came out the other end as a pair of jeans. :shock:
If anyone else never questioned where your clothing comes from, based on what I learned at the factory, every stitch, button, snap, zipper in every item you touch has been put there by human hands, a real human being. It was just amazing! I LOVED it! Production work is the BEST!
(of course, as I told my boss, I am also the person who can sit and watch a lava lamp for hours on end)...
it was exceedingly satisfying to me and because of my experience with the factory and Eleanor Burns, with her chain piecing and the rotary cutter - - quilting became the most practical thing to me. (Especially when I watched the scraps going out the back end; that didn't happen much after I found quilting <g>) <wave>